Christian Married Father and Christian University Muckity Muck, James Epting, Caught Having Affair

Christian Married Father and University Muckity Muck Caught Having Affair

This story actually broke about two or three days ago, but I didn’t feel like blogging about it then.

(Link):  A Christian College President Falls

Excerpts:

• Video of apparent affair surfaces as Christian higher education leaders are debating sexual ethics standards.
• Bob Smietana/ AUGUST 31, 2015

• Hope was in short supply when James “Jimmy” Epting became president of North Greenville College in 1991.

• …With Epting at the helm, however, the Southern Baptist college triumphed. He raised close to $50 million through a pair of capital campaigns. It became a four-year school and then a university, with more than 2,600 students by 2015.

• The chair of the trustee board called Epting’s first 23 years a season of miracles, making Epting a beloved figure—complete with a statue of him at prayer near the campus center.

• Then, in the space of two minutes, his career came to an end.

• In October 2014, Epting’s son Paul filmed a short cellphone (Link): video that apparently exposes an affair between his married father and a female college staff member.

• …By January, school officials announced that Epting would take an immediate sabbatical and retire in May, citing health concerns and unspecified other reasons.

• …The video did not become public until last week. Still, the sudden nature of Epting’s departure had raised eyebrows, said Camille Lewis, a former adjunct professor at North Greenville. She began tweeting about the video after seeing it Friday.

• “It confirms a lot of the suspicions that were raised in January,” she told CT. “It’s all just very sad.”

• …Cody Fields, a blogger and 2009 North Greenville graduate, is critical of the school’s leadership.

• “They outright lied to us,” he told CT.

• Fields had interviewed Epting several times while working for the college newspaper as a student. He said Epting was well-loved on campus. The first time they met was when Fields was on a campus tour as a prospective student. Epting ran into the tour group and welcomed them warmly with hugs, he said. That one encounter made North Greenville feel like home from the start. Now his feelings for the school have begun to sour.

• ..The controversy over Epting’s alleged misconduct comes at a time when North Greenville and other Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) members are already dividing over issues of sexuality. Union University, a Southern Baptist school in Jackson, Tennessee, recently left the CCCU in protest of the decision of two colleges—Eastern Mennonite University and Goshen College—to affirm same-sex marriages for staffers. Other CCCU members have threatened to quit if the CCCU does not remove Goshen and Eastern Mennonite as members by today (August 31).

You can visit Christianity Today to read the entire page

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(Link): Bias and Discrimination Against Singles and Females – Woman Fired by Christian Employer for Being Divorced but Her Male Divorced Co-Workers Not Fired

(Link):  Consider The Source: Christians Who Give Singles Dating Advice Also Regularly Coach Wives to Stay in Abusive Marriages

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